Minister of Public Health, Volda Lawrence
In light of the Auditor General’s findings into the controversial $366M deal with HDM Labs to provide emergency medical supplies, People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Member of Parliament, Dr. Frank Anthony, said that the Government needs to provide urgent answers on the National Assembly.
“We now have the Auditor General’s report and some of the things we suspected have been happening have become very clear in the Auditor General’s report,” Dr. Anthony told Kaieteur News.
He maintains that the entire deal reeks of corruption and requires further investigations.
Dr. Anthony had submitted questions to Minister of Public Health, Volda Lawrence, on July 17, 2018, but the Minister using the Government’s majority in Parliament was granted a request to have her answers deferred until after the recess.
When Parliament sittings resumed on October 18, the questions were not part of the agenda.
“I do hope we get answers because the rationale for having to move to emergency procurement procedures doesn’t hold. If you wanted this delivery in two weeks then why did we have to wait six months for HDM Labs to deliver the items,” Dr. Anthony pointed out.
The Audit Office has vowed to “conduct further scrutiny of the awarding and execution of the contract.”
So far, the Audit Office has found that HDM Labs took six months to complete its supply of over $400M worth of “emergency drugs” that was needed within two weeks.
Further, auditors compared the prices charged by HDM Labs to the prices charged by other suppliers. The audit report noted that the drugs could have been sourced for at least $100M less.
The Audit Office noted that on April 28, 2017, the Ministry wrote the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) requesting approval for six suppliers to be invited to bid for varying quantities of 13 drugs through the restricted method of procurement.
The suppliers were International Pharmaceutical Agency, Caribbean Medical Supplies, Ansa McAl Trading Ltd, Global Healthcare Supplies Inc., Meditron Inc. and HDM Labs Inc.
NPTAB granted approval in May 2017 for the use of the requested method of procurement and tender documents were sold to all six suppliers. Only the first three suppliers, that is, the International Pharmaceutical Agency, Caribbean Medical Supplies and Ansa McAl Trading Limited, tendered for the supply of the items.
The tenders were opened on May 23, 2017 and were evaluated by the Evaluation Committee appointed by the NPTAB. The Committee on June 14, 2017 did not recommend an award since the members agreed that no tenderer met all the required evaluation criteria and they all failed to submit complete bids for all of the items.
The Ministry subsequently wrote the NPTAB on June 29, 2017 requesting approval to retender for the procurement of the items through the restricted method of procurement and from the same six suppliers.
The suppliers were requested to submit their tenders no later than July 18, 2017. On this date, only one tenderer, that is HDM Labs, submitted a tender for the supply of the items. The Evaluation Committee recommended that a contract be awarded to the lone tenderer for the supply of the items.
